BANK cashpoint tricksters have cleared out a Marlborough couple's current account using a variation of a scam known as the Lebanese Loop.

Police have warned all people using hole-in-the- wall cash dispensers to be on their guard and not to use the machines if there are suspicious characters nearby.

The Marlborough couple, who do not want to be identified, fell victim to a new variation on a theme that has become known as the Lebanese Loop.

Originally the thieves inserted a thin flexible plastic strip into cashpoints-.

The thieves are now using a variation on this system which allows the customer to recover their card but leaving a plastic film in the machine on which their card details have been imprinted.

The Marlborough victim was a secretarial worker who became suspicious as she used the HSBC Bank cashpoint in High Street.

After she inserted her card a man standing close to her pointed out a five pound note on the pavement which, he said, she had dropped. Although she said should could not have dropped it, the man insisted she pick it up.

She was unable to withdraw cash and removed her card. She discovered she had been the victim of a scam a day later when the cashpoint said she had no funds in her account.

Sgt Martyn Sweett, of Marlborough police, said there had been two reports of Lebanese Loop-type incidents in the town.

Sgt Sweett urged all cashpoint users to make sure there was no one standing close enough to see them enter their pin number and to be suspicious of any attempt to distract them.

He said if they were suspicious they should not attempt a transaction and report the incident.